KRISTALLNACHT (“THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS”), 1938 term paper

Between 1933 and 1938, German Jews were subject to increasing persecution, mostly of a quasi-legal nature. Legislation, in particular the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, excluded Jews from the Civil Service, which included the teaching profession; deprived them of German citizenship; and made marriages and sexual relations with non-Jews illegal. The object of the laws, regulations, and informal practices appeared to be to force German Jews to leave the country. Many countries, including the United States, refused to do anything to make it easier for Jews to immigrate.

In 1938 a new and harsher phase in the persecution of German Jews began, starting with “The Night of Broken Glass” or Kristallnacht, 9–10 November. It was called “The Night of Broken Glass” because of all the plate glass windows broken in Jewish shops by members of the Nazi party and the S.A. (Stormtroopers, the paramilitary auxilliary of the Nazi Party). The excuse for these attacks was the report that a German diplomat had been killed by Hershl Grynszpan, a seventeeen-year-old Polish Jewish student, to protest the deportation of his parents. In actuality, Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, coordinated a campaign that encouraged S.A. and party members to rape, murder, and pillage.

In a coordinated effort that night all over Germany, synagogues and Jewish institutions were burned down. Thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed. Nearly a hundred Jews were killed. Many others were beaten or tortured.

In the aftermath, German Jews were subjected to new restrictions, which denied them access to public places such as beaches and movie theaters and expelled their children from German schools. While Jews were compensated for damages if they had insurance, the government confiscated their compensation and fined them an additional billion marks. Furthermore, a comprehensive decree excluded Jews from virtually all areas of economic life.

In a speech to the Reichstag on 30 January 1939, Hitler threatened German and other European Jews: If the Jewish international financiers succeed in involving the nations in another war, the result will not be world Bolshevism and therefore a victory for Judaism; it will be the destruction [Vernichtung] of the Jews in Europe.”
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Investigate the framing of the Nuremberg Laws, in particular the attempts to define who was a Jew. Use this material as the basis for an essay discussing why Nazi Germany would begin the persecution of the Jews through legislation.
2. Some historians believe the eugenics movement of the 1920s and 1930s inadvertently prepared the way for Nazi anti-Semitism by attempts to establish a scientific basis for racial theories. Do a report on the eugenics movement in Germany and its connections to Nazi anti-Semitism and racial theories. Use Detlev Peukert’s essay in Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945 (see Suggested Sources) as a starting point.
3. It has been suggested that the Jim Crow laws of the American South furnished a model for Nazi Germany to follow. Determine the extent to which this was true and reflect on the similarities and differences between the persecution of Jews in Germany and segregation in the American South in the 1930s.
4. Read eyewitness accounts of Kristallnacht and write a story or a television show dramatizing an aspect of that event. Use as starting points State, Economy and Society, 1933–1939 and Alison Owings, Frauen (see Suggested Sources).
5. Following its annexation to Germany, techniques developed in Austria to compel its Jewish population to emigrate were introduced into Germany. Review the Austrian situation and assess the importance of extending practices used there to Germany itself.
6. Reinhard Heydrich was centrally involved in the persecution of Jews after Kristallnacht—report on his career before and after Kristallnacht. Begin with Joachim Fest, The Face of the Third Reich.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Nazi ‘Seizure of Power’ in 1933” (#24) and “The Holocaust, 1941–1945” (#34). Search under Adolf Eichmann, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, eugenics, Social Darwinism, and euthanasia.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Sax, Benjamin, and Dieter Kuntz, eds. Inside Hitler’s Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1992. Chapter 13 includes documents on anti-Semitism, including some on Kristallnacht.

Noakes J., and G. Pridham, eds. Nazism, 1919–1945. Vol. 2, State, Economy and Society, 1933–1939. Exeter, U.K.: University of Exeter Press, 1994. Chapter 23 contains a number of documents on anti-Semitism between 1933 and 1939, including several on Kristallnacht.

Secondary Sources

Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992. Although Bullock’s earlier work, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1964) is more detailed, the dual biography reflects recent scholarship.

Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews, 1933–1945. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. First published in 1975. One of the best histories of the Holocaust. A good place to begin a study of Kristallnacht.

Fest, Joachim C. The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970. Excellent biographical sketches of most of the Nazi leaders.

Fischer, Klaus P. Nazi Germany: A New History. New York: Continuum, 1995. An excellent recent survey.

Fisher, David, and Anthony Read. Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989. Highly readable. A good introduction.

Friedlander, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. Vol. 1, The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. The first volume of what will undoubtedly become a standard work on the Holocaust.

Gellately, Robert. The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. A good introduction to a key institution in the attempts to define and enforce Nazi racial ideas.

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Rev. ed. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985. First published in 1961. A massive history of the Holocaust, probably the best single book on the subject. Owings, Alison. Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich.New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994. Interviews with a wide variety of German women who recall their experiences in the Third Reich.

Peukert, Detlev. “The Genesis of the ‘Final Solution’ from the Spirit of Science,” in David F. Crew, ed. Nazism and German Society, 1933–1945. London: Routledge, 1994. A fascinating article on the connection between science and Nazi racial policies.

———. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Gives an idea of what daily life was like in Nazi Germany.